Pluripotent stem (PS) cells e.g. embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have the ability to maintain pluripotency during long-term culture and yet induce differentiation into multiple lineages and therefore potentially offer novel cell sources for e.g. basic research, toxicological screening, in vitro modeling of genetic disorders or therapeutic cell replacement. There are still many obstacles to overcome until these endpoints can be fully realized. For instance it will be necessary to find culture conditions that support safe, simple and robust derivation, growth, maintenance and large-scale expansion, while maintaining self-renewal, of these difficult to culture cells. Especially important is the need for methods for maintenance of human PS cells in vitro. These methods have to be good enough to maintain the population of cells without inducing mutagenesis, high levels of differentiation or loss of pluripotency.
Mouse ES cells are extensively used in basic research to e.g. study normal and pathological development and function and the knowledge obtained using these cells is often transferred to human systems. Most mouse ES (mES) cell lines used today are grown on pre-plated mitotically inactivated mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) feeder cells in media supplemented with selected batches of fetal bovine serum (FBS) and Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF). The feeder cells provide a matrix that support mES cell attachment and secrete various growth factors that enhance the survival and propagation of mES cell growth whereas FBS provides hormones and essential nutrients, as well as altering the physiological/physiochemical properties of the medium. LIF drastically improves the derivation and maintenance of the pluripotency of mES cells. Some mES cell lines have been derived and adapted to grow feeder-free on 0.1% Gelatin coating (heterogeneous mixture of water-soluble proteins of high average molecular weight present in collagen and extracted from bovine skin) in serum and LIF containing media. Both these cell culture protocols have the shortcoming that many of their components (i.e. FBS, bovine serum albumin or BSA, gelatin) are not defined and are animal-derived. FBS, for instance, contains various growth factors and other undefined components that promote ES cell growth, but it has also been suggested to contain potential differentiation factors that can affect mES cell plating efficiency, growth and differentiation. Therefore FBS batches need to be pre-screened and ES-qualified to ensure that the net-effect of serum factors that sustain mES cell maintenance and growth outweighs the effects of differentiation-inducing factors. Feeders in their turn secrete a plethora of factors impossible to control and are a possible source of pathogenic contamination.
To improve control of what factors ES cells are actually subjected to, and to avoid interference from undesired factors, several newer and more defined protocols have been established. In 2003 it was shown that BMP4 could be efficiently used in combination with LIF for mES derivation and maintenance in serum- and feeder-free cultures (Qi, Li et al. 2004). In 2004, a chemically defined (the exact formulation is not described) synthetic knockout serum replacement (KOSR) was developed to replace serum. However, the KOSR cannot alone support mES single-cell culture in the absence of feeders. In 2008, it was shown that mES could be maintained in the absence of serum and feeder cells as free-floating spheres in a N2 supplemented medium with LIF and bFGF (basic fibroblast growth factor), herein named ESN2 medium (Andang, Moliner et al. 2008, Moliner, Enfors et al. 2008).
Recently, another defined media supplemented with two inhibitors, the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK) kinase (MEK) inhibitor PD0325901 and the glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) inhibitor CHIR99021, added to a B27 and N2 supplemented medium (herein named 2i medium) was shown to maintain mES cell self-renewal without the addition of exogenous factors (Ying, Wray et al. 2008). Mouse ES cells cultured in 2i medium still respond to LIF, which enhances cloning efficiency and proliferation rates. A drawback with this culture protocol is that, in the absence of serum, the cells do not adhere to the tissue culture plate but instead grow as free-floating spheres (Tamm, Pijuan Galito et al. 2013); moreover, the growth rate of the mES cells is decreased.
Human PS (hPS) cells and their differentiated cells are most commonly cultured in the presence of surfaces or media containing animal-derived components, such as feeder layers (both mouse-derived, typically MEFs, and human-derived, typically human foreskin fibroblasts or HFFs), Matrigel® (soluble basement membrane extract of the Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm EHS tumor), knock out serum replacement (KOSR) and/or derivatives like BSA. These animal-derived reagents added to the culture environment expose the cells to potentially harmful viruses or other infectious agents, which could be transferred to patients or compromise general culture and maintenance of the hPS cells. In addition, such biological products are vulnerable to batch variations, immune responses and limited shelf-life, and the exposure of the cells to molecules from other species also creates changes that could create an immune response in the recipient, if the cells were to be used in cell therapy.
To date, several completely recombinant, xeno-free systems employing a chemically defined medium and a synthetic or defined surface have been described. The most recent success in human PS cells culturing was published in Nature methods in 2011 describing a chemically reduced and completely defined media, named E8 only containing 8 different chemical components, that could support hiPS cell derivation and further successful culture on Matrigel® or a vitronectin-based surface (Chen, Gulbranson et al. 2011). Even so, different cell lines and different laboratories obtain different results when using defined media, and the most widely used protocols are still the combination of Matrigel® and mTESR1® (which contains BSA, purified from FBS) for hPS cells; and Gelatin coating and media supplemented with FBS for mES cells. Moreover, hPS cells cannot be split as single cells if not in the presence of the ROCK-inhibitor molecule (i.e. Y-27632) (Watanabe, Ueno et al. 2007), and for routine passaging need to be split in clumps with a gentle dissociation technique, proving the crucial role of the extracellular environment for pluripotent stem cells.
There is still an urgent need to understand all the different components necessary for the growth and maintenance of undifferentiated, non-mutated, pluripotent stem cells. It is important to get the right combination of extracellular matrix (ECM) and media factors, especially for the human PS cell lines, otherwise the cells show low attachment, survival and proliferation rates, as well as high levels of differentiation.
For the sake of cell survival and proliferation rate, current protocols for cell culture still use FBS or derivatives such as BSA in the cell culture media and, thus, there is still need of an improved serum free protocol that does not compromise the cells, the culture conditions or the pluripotency.